348 SEXUALITY OF VEGETABLES. CHAP. Vt, 



As Hlus- have been found to exhibit similar proofs of sexu- 



trated by . . _. 



Hedwig, ahty also, so that Cryptogamy can now be scarcely 

 said to exist ; and much less any thing like equi- 

 vocal generation ; whence it seems indeed to follow, 

 according to the favourite maxim of that great na- 

 turalist, that all plants spring from seed. 



At the same time it must be admitted that there 

 still exists some considerable diversity of opinion 

 on this subject, notwithstanding all that has been 

 done by Hedwig and others to prove that all plants 

 are furnished with distinct sexual organs, capable 

 of producing perfect seeds. Gaertner, a most able 

 and accurate observer of nature, controverts the 

 opinion of Hedwig, and contends that many of 

 the plants called Cryptogamous, instead of being 

 thus completely furnished with stamens and pistils, 

 are either defective in some part of their sexual ap- 

 paratus, so as not to exhibit the male and female 

 organs distinct; or are destitute of a sexual ap- 

 paratus altogether, and propagated not by seeds, 

 but by gems. In the former class he ranks the 

 Ferns, Mosses, and Fuci, discarding the alleged 

 stamens of Hedwig and others altogether, and con- 

 tending that the ovary is also the organ of fecun- 

 dation, absorbing and elaborating a mucous sub- 

 stance with which it is found to be surrounded, 

 particularly in the Fuci, and thus effecting its fe- 

 cundation, as in the Aphrodites of Adanson.* But 



* Famil. dcs Plantcs, vol. i. p. 264. 



